 In our day-to-day lives we take things for granted, we move too fast from one thing to the next, uninterestedly ignoring how things came into existence, and without pause in appreciating the causes and effects around us. Language is one of these elements that we use most often, yet even the deep knowledge and history of our own mother tongues is lacking, let alone understanding those of other nations and peoples. My mother tongue is Arabic, I have used it daily throughout my communicative life via thought, speech, or song, yet there is still an enormous amount I still don't know about its complexity, structure, and beauty. Let's start with the word itself, Arabic, or its root, Arab for that matter. Where did that come from? Historians over the ages believed that the 9th century BCE King of Yemen, the Arab Ibn Ghahtan, was the first of what were considered the Arabian Arabs, and was credited as the first speaker of the Arabic language in its pure form. The Arabs name itself was also the inspiration for the coining of the term Arab that would go on to represent the indigenous people of the peninsula and region for the rest of time. The Arabic language uses a word root system. Roots are three-letter words that can with slight modification by adding letters and accentuations, lead to the formation of other words. These secondary words typically have associated meanings to the original root word. In Arabic, there are over 6,000 root words that generate several hundreds of thousands of secondary words. Let us use the example of the word Qatab. It is a three-letter word that means right. From this single root word we can generate numerous words. By adding two letters, Qatab gives us the word for book. All another letter gives us Meqtab, meaning office. And another leads to Meqtub, representing letter. And finally, one more gives us Meqtaba. We then get library, and so on. As you may know, Arabic is a Semitic language written from right to left. But if you haven't noticed, numbers on the other hand are written left to right. Why is that? To appreciate this logic, you should understand that when Arabs speak numbers, the composition always starts with the smaller numbers first. So in the case of 27, the 7 is identified first, and then followed by the 20, 7 for 7, and 20 for 20, so that's a 7 first, and then a 20. And to write that spoken sequence correctly from right to left will result in the written number 27. When looking at mathematics, and specifically algebra, have you ever wondered why there are letters involved with numbers? I'm sure it was as confusing to you as it was to me the first time I was exposed to Algebra's incomprehensible equations. Well, you can blame the Arabic language for the first and most common of all these letters, X. The letter X's origin in Algebra comes from the Arabic word Shay, meaning a thing. As Algebra sped geographically, it eventually was translated in Spain during the Middle Ages. The closest pronunciation of the Arabic letter composition Sh, in Old Spanish, was the letter X. This consequently led to the transliteration of the word Shay into X-E-I, Shay. The term for the unknown was further abbreviated to the more commonly used symbol X. There is richness all around us in our day-to-day lives, knowledge that entices the mind and makes us understand and think more about how we came to be what we are today. What are some facts about the Arabic language that you find intriguing and shareable? What are the facts and attributes that give you a feeling of connection and belonging to your mother tongue?